But I'm Not A Gilmore!
by Rory Forrester
Summary: ‘My mother has two daughters.’ ‘My father has two daughters.’ We are the youngest on each side, the two who are most often overlooked, the two who are overshadowed by Gilmores. This is our story.
1. Elizabeth 'Eliza' Rose Danes

**Title:** But I'm **Not** A Gilmore!

**Author:** Rory Forrester

**Rating:** K+

**Summary:** 'My mother has two daughters.' 'My father has two daughters.' We are the youngest on each side; the two who are most often overlooked; the two who are overshadowed by Gilmores. This is our story.

**A/N:** For my purposes, Lorelai and Luke hooked up way back in Season 3, and in Season 4, they had Eliza. The story is set in 2023. Lorelai is 54, Luke is 56, Rory is 38, E&R are 77, Eliza is 19, Gigi is 20 and Lee is 15.

**A/N:** This is why I think that when Lorelai and Luke have a kid (hopefully!) it should be a boy, not a girl. And also, I own nothing. Please don't sue.

**Disclaimer:** Don't sue. All is not mine.

**Chapter One: Elizabeth "Eliza" Rose Danes**

My mother, Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, has two daughters:

Lorelai "Rory" Leigh Gilmore and Elizabeth "Eliza" Rose Danes.

I am Eliza.

I am not a Gilmore.

I will never be a Gilmore, no matter how hard I've tried. I've accepted it now, moved on. But back then, it was hard to accept, awfully hard.

One of my first memories is of Rory picking me up from preschool. I was three. I loved Rory then, not yet realizing that she was the one who I would spend the rest of my life being compared to, attempting to live up to, competing with.

I would always compete with Rory for my mother's attention, my grandparents' attention, the town's attention and my father's attention.

And I would always fail, every time.

It hurts, even now, to admit that to myself. Even though I've accepted it, it still hurts. I should've known that my mother would always favour Rory. She couldn't help it. Rory is her pal, her beloved, perfect namesake, who looks like her, talks like her and is her best friend. She had Rory at sixteen. She and Rory have this amazing bond, probably owing to the fact that they really grew up together and their ages are so close together. But it's more that that, really. They understand each other, so completely, so perfectly.

What hurts the most is competing with Rory for my father's attention. I always knew, always have known that Rory was my mother's favourite—but my father? She's not even his daughter. She's his step-daughter.

And she's still his favourite.

My mother is not a bad person, or a bad mother. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to imply either of those things. My entire life she has loved me and done what was the best for me. But she and I were mother and daughter always, not like her and Rory, who were best friends first and mother and daughter second.

We could never have what they had.

Partially because she didn't want it

She already had Rory. She already had her best friend. She raised Rory trying to give her a childhood much different than her own. She raised me trying to give me a good childhood.

Those are two very different things.

We never had movie marathons. We never went to concerts together. I never had to scold her and tell her to clean up. We didn't grow up together. She was already an adult and made liberal use of her Mom card.

I grew up with a man in the house. We weren't a democracy, never doing anything unless everyone agreed. What they said went. Always. There was no me-and-Mom-secret-special-clubhouse-no-boys-allowed atmosphere when I was growing up. I lived a normal life with a mother and a father.

My grandparents, Richard and Emily Gilmore paid for me to go to Chilton Academy, Rory's alma mater.

Everywhere I went, Rory's legend preceded me. Everyone expected me to be just like her. Never mind that I liked to paint, to sing, to act. I didn't like to read. I didn't like trig or bio or lit class.

On my first day, Headmaster Charleston pulled out all of Rory's old records and told me how I came from fine stock. He told me all about Rory's extra-curriculars, her perfect GPA and how she was valedictorian. I didn't bother to tell him that I already knew all of this, that I had heard it thousands upon thousands of times. When he had finally finished, he fixed me with a stern glare and told me that, as I was a Gilmore, he expected nothing but great things from me. I wanted to scream, wanted to tell him that I wasn't a Gilmore, that I couldn't be a Gilmore, no matter how hard I tried. That was in my stage of trying to be as Gilmore-like as I could.

It didn't help that when I was a senior, Lee came to Chilton as a freshman.

Lee. Lorelai "Lee" Lane Gilmore-Forrester. Rory's daughter. Rory's perfect, angel-daughter. Lee was just like Rory, just like Lorelai. A combination of the two of them: just as smart and driven as Rory and just as fun and silly as Lorelai.

She even looked like them, yet another thing that distinguishes her as a Gilmore. She has the eyes. Those piercing, bright blue eyes. The Gilmore Eyes. And why shouldn't she? They are, after all, her birthright.

For a while, I thought they were my birthright too. But in time, I realized that they weren't. Because I wasn't a Lorelai Gilmore and would never be one.

Forget about the eyes--I don't have their trademark black-brown hair; their lithe, skinny bodies; their porcelain complexions; I'm not addicted to coffee; I can't rhyme off thousands of pop-culture, literary and historical references; I don't have patience for shopping; I don't like to read; I don't have the ability to eat tons of junk food and never gain a pound; I actually don't mind sports; I'm not a music freak; I'm not addicted to Sephora; I don't talk a mile-a-minute; I don't have some sort of innate fashion sense; Pouting gets me nowhere; I don't have men falling all over me; and I'm not a unforgiving mocker.

I'm short and skinny—mainly from exercising and my vegetarian diet. Like my father, Luke Danes, I don't really like junk food or coffee or any of those other things that my mother, half-sister and niece pollute their bodies with.

I have wavy dark blond hair and grey eyes and a liberal helping of freckles sprinkled across my tanned nose.

I am not effortlessly, breathtakingly beautiful. I'm cute. Cute really pales in comparison.

I want to be an actress.

Ironically, the best place to go for that, aside from Julliard, would be Yale.

Rory's alma mater.

Once again.

And I didn't get into Julliard.

I didn't tell anyone, except Gigi, that I was applying to Julliard.

They all thought that I was just applying to Yale, Harvard and Princeton.

Just like Rory.

And so here I am, at Yale.

Just like perfect Rory.

Where her legend follows me around wherever I go. All of her old professors remembered her. Numerous plaques bearing her name on them surround me. Her picture is on the valedictorian wall.

You might wonder how I got into a school like Yale, seeing as I mentioned that I'm not the most academically inclined girl in the world.

I worked hard. I pushed myself. I had a tutor.

I considered asking Rory for help but decided against it. Lee offered me help, but never, ever, not in a thousand years would I take her help.

And so I graduated with a 3.4 GPA. Not great. Good, but not great.

Not Yale-worthy.

I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty damn certain that both Grandpa and Rory made **A Call.**

I'm not quite so certain about Rory…but I'm 99 certain about Grandpa.

And when I'm a senior, Lee will be a freshman.

Because she will inevitably go to Yale.

And everyone will marvel about how on earth we could possibly be related.

And she will show me up, just like always.

So right now, I'm going to make the most of my time in the Yale Drama School.

That was the easy part to get into, the Drama School.

Rory and Grandpa were ecstatic to hear that I was going to Yale. They both took me on a tour of the campus.

Tomorrow is the day of **The Game**. I'd be lying if I said that I'd never heard of The Game until last Friday Night Dinner. It's not even my first Harvard-Yale game. I've been going to them my whole life. Everyone will be there: Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Rory, Dean, Lee, Christopher, Gigi and I. Christopher and Gigi even go. They support Yale, just because that's what you do. However, whenever Yale plays Princeton, they support Princeton.

There was a family portrait of us done once. All of the "Gilmores" as Grandma and Grandpa put it. It was originally just going to be Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, me, Rory, Dean and Lee, but Mom did a little arm-twisting and got them to include Chris and Gigi.

I was looking at it, last week at Friday Night Dinner. Even though Gigi and I aren't the only ones with the last name Gilmore, we are the only ones who stick out. We're the only ones with blond hair. Even though Dad, Chris and Dean aren't Gilmores, they fit it, tall with brown hair.

If Rory had married Logan, like Grandma and Grandpa wanted her to, maybe their daughter would've had blond hair and there would be two more outsiders in the portrait.

But I'm glad she didn't. I didn't know Logan very well, I was only 4 when they finally broke up, but I didn't like him. Or at least what I remember of him.

I'm also glad she didn't because it made Grandma and Grandpa mad. Perfect Rory didn't marry the heir to the Huntzberger fortune, oh no. She married a mechanic.

That got Grandma and Grandpa so mad. I remember that fight so well. I was about 6 when Rory and Dean announced at Friday Night Dinner that they were getting married. I remember screaming and yelling and Grandpa getting all red in the face and Grandma smashing her drink down on the table and Rory calling them snobs and telling them she loved Dean and Grandma asking what was wrong with Logan and Rory telling them that Logan was an asshole. Then Grandma got mad at her for swearing in front of me and Rory told Grandma not to change the subject. More screaming and yelling ensued and then Rory and Dean just got up and left. We left shortly after that.

I feel kind of bad for Dean. He certainly wasn't welcomed into the Gilmore clan by the matriarch and patriarch. But I don't feel that bad for Dean, because, after all, Grandma and Grandpa quickly apologized and welcomed him into the fold.

And he was happy, because he'd won the girl of his dreams. Not Tristan, not Jess, not Logan, not Marty.

Dean's always been nice to me. I think he suspects that I don't really feel like I belong.

But he doesn't really understand. Nobody understands. Nobody except Gigi.

Gigi is my best friend. We sat down, once, and tried to figure out if we were related, because Rory is both of ours' half-sister. We couldn't come up with any kind of conclusion.

Gigi has always been there for me because she, unlike anyone else, really understands what my life is like. Grandma and Grandpa eventually warmed up to her and sort of 'adopted' her as their own grandchild, and so she is usually present at Friday Night Dinner.

But I digress. Gigi understands what my life is like because that's what her life is like. Chris thinks that the Gilmore girls are fantastic and wants his own daughter to be just like them.

So he moved to Hartford and sent Gigi to Chilton. Even though she's a year older than me, she made everything better. We would hang out all the time and support each other when we felt like we couldn't make it through another comparison to Mom, Rory or Lee.

She would always help me through the times I felt like an outsider in my own house. Like the time Mom and I had had a huge fight, and three days later I was finally ready to talk. So I came downstairs. And there, on the couch, with their backs turned to me, were Mom, Rory and Lee having a movie marathon. They were laughing. Mom made a joke about how they were the Gilmore girls, the Lorelai Gilmores and they weren't complete without each other. And then Rory rhymed off their names in a sing-song voice: Lorelai Victoria Gilmore, Lorelai Leigh Gilmore and Lorelai Lane Gilmore-Forrester. I don't remember what Lee said. But there they were. They were all each other needed. They were unknowingly rubbing it in my face, that I was not one of them. I turned and went back upstairs. I cried into the phone, and within the hour, Gigi was over at the house, rubbing my back and listening to me cry and hurl my words all around.

It was hard when Gigi graduated and left for Princeton. Especially because that was the year Lee came to Chilton. And I was being shown up by a freshman. But we found a way around it. We would talk on the phone all of the time and we would see each other every Friday night.

Now that I'm at Yale, we just follow the same routine.

My life is getting better all the time. I don't live in Casa Gilmore anymore; I have the best best friend in the entire world; I'm actually doing well at something that Mom, Rory and Lee aren't good at—drama; and I have a great boyfriend. For once, I don't have a boyfriend who's falling in love with Lee instead.

So, I'm not a Gilmore. But I've accepted it and moved on.

My life is getting better all the time. I am Eliza Danes and I am happy to be.


	2. Georgia 'Gigi' Olivia Haden

**A/N:** Thanks for the reviews! This is the last chapter.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothin'.

**Chapter Two: Georgia "Gigi" Olivia Haden**

My father, Christopher Straub Haden, has two daughters:

Lorelai "Rory" Leigh Gilmore and Georgia "Gigi" Olivia Haden.

I am Gigi.

I am not a Gilmore.

I will never be a Gilmore, no matter how hard I've tried. I've accepted it now, moved on. But back then, it was hard to accept, awfully hard.

My father wanted nothing more than for me to be a Gilmore. He was in awe of the Gilmores. He thought they were amazing, beautiful creatures capable of doing anything. He wanted me to be just like them.

He would always compare me to them, especially Rory. When I was very young, it was always "Now, Gigi, what would Rory do in a situation like this?" or "How would Rory solve that problem?" At first I just thought that he noticed that I admired my big sister and was playing on that, but I soon realized that he just really wanted me to be like her.

No, not like her.

Be her.

He wanted to prove to Lorelai that he too could raise a fantastic kid all on his own.

And so I became his puppet.

I always had to succeed. I always had to be the best in the class.

And it wasn't so bad. Or at least the pressure to succeed wasn't.

I'm smart enough, I always did really well in school.

But I wasn't Rory, I will never be Rory; and so, to Dad, I was never quite good enough.

I play soccer. In fact, I'm great at soccer. I had difficulty telling Dad, because I thought he'd be disappointed.

But he wasn't. For the first time in my life, he was ecstatic about something I had done, and I, in turn, was ecstatic. I thought that he was actually happy for me, happy that I'd found something I loved.

But it wasn't long until I realized that he was just happy that I was good at something that Rory wasn't. **Rory. **It always comes down to Rory or Lorelai. He wants me to be as smart and driven as Rory and as capable and responsible as Lorelai.

Things are always tense at Friday Night Dinner. Always. There's always a lot of tension between Dad and Lorelai and between Dad and Luke. Emily and Richard look down their noses at Luke and Dean. Emily and Richard are always asking me, Eliza and Lee about school, and of course that's awkward. Lee does the best out of the three of us, and you can tell that Emily and Richard like her best. I don't blame them for liking her more than me; but I can tell it hurts Eliza. She tries so hard.

All Eliza and I have ever done is try.

All anyone has ever done to us is blame us for not being Gilmore.

I met my mother, once.

Sherry Tinsdale, that's her name.

I was so excited to meet her. I was 15 years old.

I'd seen pictures of her before, and I had her hair and eyes. Blond hair and green eyes.

I was hoping that we'd have the kind of relationship that Lorelai and Rory have or Rory and Lee have.

I don't know what I was thinking. Well, I do, actually. I didn't know Mom—Sherry—like I do now.

I didn't know that she was stupid or fake or flighty or obsessive or an insane neat-freak or pathetic or insecure or needy.

Looking at **that**, at my mother, I can't blame my father for hoping I'd turn out more like the Gilmores.

My mother didn't care about me. She made a big show about seeing me again and cried—but those tears were fake. Fake as the big white smile plastered on her face. If she had given a damn about me she would've been there. She wouldn't have just left.

I've never really had a mother figure in my life.

I've had my Dad.

I've had Lorelai, but she's more like an aunt. Cares about you, but doesn't really know you too well. I'd hoped for a while that she could be like a mother figure to me, but she wasn't. She doesn't need to. She already has Rory and Lee and Eliza to be a mother to.

And so I've been just sort of taking life day by day, step by step, trying to navigate things on my own.

I don't know if I'd say my Dad has been a great dad. Or even a good dad.

He was there, I'll give him that.

Rory was always his favourite, and I can accept that.

I can't accept that I spent my whole childhood trying to live up to Miss-Perfect-GPA.

I can't accept that the only times my father has been pleased with me aren't through happiness for me, but happiness that I'm excelling at something Rory didn't.

I can't accept that I'm only a tool, used to show Lorelai that he too can be a successful single parent.

I can't accept that his love is hinged on my success.

I can't accept that he doesn't love me for me.

I can't accept that my father wants me to be someone else.

I can't accept that nothing I do will ever be quite good enough.

I can accept that I am not a Gilmore.

I can accept that I will never be a Gilmore.

I can accept that I am Gigi Haden, and that is all I will ever be.

And I am happy to be Gigi Haden.


End file.
